the new language of thinkers
In my last blog outing ‘The politics of an artistic process’ I went on a rant. A big one. And I was taken to task for it. Rightly so. There’s nothing worse than having to read or listen to someone spewing a barrage – as was noted; ’you also speak a lot without saying anything, where are your true convictions? What do you want to see or to say?’ I responded in as constructive a manner as was possible but to be honest I was sucker punched. The person who made the comment was absolutely right. I was too right. Too moralistic, too high handed. And it was all too easy, intellectually shallow. All fluff, no substance.
It was about time I was brought to book. Too often I sit down infront of my computer and think about what rant I’ll go on next. There is so much to be dissatisfied with – for sure. There is so much to be frustrated about – no doubt. However, having said all that it is simply not good enough to get up on your soap box and let fly. For one thing it’s tedious and, most importantly, no one, not me the ranter, nor you, the audience, learn anything. Thought, discussion, reflection, debate are left out in the cold. Intelligence goes on holiday until the next blog comes around. Well, I’ve decided that from now I’m going to be more considered. Perhaps I’ll get personal – stick with what I know – and reflect on my perception of things.
Of course, mutantspace.com is the most obvious place to start as I built it as a vehicle for change, on the back of much work, much thought. More importantly it is a means to create new situations, new tools for people to use in a practical way. mutantspace.com seeks a way to new spaces, undiscovered territories that allow us freedom to play, to create outside the control of the mainstream cultural system. However, as this journey moves on, from phase to phase, I find myself needing to dig deeper into contemporary cultural theory, radical political, philosophical and sociological theory, into academia to centre myself, explain what I’m about, what I’m trying to get at. And there lies the rub. Knowing that I need to start looking at the wider picture and begin contextualising this journey I am on, we are on, I am stumped. At a fullstop. I am reduced to ranting.
I don’t have the tools to talk about the large political, philosophical, sociological issues of our times. I don’t have the language, the information, the exactness to express that need I have, that desire to explain my frustration with the system in which I live. The control it has over me, the all pervasiveness of it. I am frustrated in my attempts to try and articulate the situation I find myself in – like a baby who knows what they want but can’t say it, can’t be succinct, can only point in the general direction and grunt until someone eventually gets it. I am a babble machine vomiting goobledegook as I try to make my way beyond the shadow of control into the light of freedom.
To that end, next month I will be introducing an academic column into this blog (written by someone else) and hope that you’ll all come on this journey of discovery with me. In the meantime have a look at this documentary on Antonio Negri. It was sent to me today.
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Nah! It’s not correct to think that those who assume they are completely correct in taking someone to task over Ranting are automatically and one hundred percent correct in expecting the one who is accused of Ranting to apologetically self-efface in order to grace the high placed naysayers of Rant with respect for their esteemed judgement. Nah, nah, nah, nah. ‘The really together ones’ who deem themselves critically correct enough to recant Rant are not correct! Not for everyone. (. . . ‘emotional baggage’? well the term itself, what it is intended to covey and what the term is entitled to include under its banner – it’s ALL debatable – dependent upon view points and dependent upon the relative diversity of the life stories that, to a greater or lesser extent, have worked very hard to get their extended view points in the first place.) Rant? IT’S A GENRE! Take stand-up, for instance. Look at theatre! Look at g-damn THRASH for bleep, bleep’s sake. (What’s the social, cultural, economic profile of the anti-Ranter? Does the anti-Ranter reserve unto ‘themself’ the correctness of ranting upon subjects pertinent to ‘themself’. Or is it just lilting, sotto voce complaint of the weather, under the breath, in a dishonesty of programmed tolerance? Or is everythang just grroooveh?) A creative, sensitive intelligence who never installed the theory and learned the practical implementation of ‘looking out for number one’, feeling always intimidated by the divisiveness of everything and everyone, excruciated under the selfish nastiness rolling off so much of all, and feeling that no matter what, where or how is done or gleaned by more hard work, one is still going to be just a futile molecule of a cog in the hierarchical wheel of some nebulous controlling group’s agenda for their own postulation and splendour: I SURVIVE just a little bit more when other people Rant. I come ALIVE just a little bit more when other people Rant. I feel like there is someone out there who might be a little bit like me, or might have seen a little bit of what I’ve seen and been to some of the places I’ve been (life-giving connectivity). Because I’ve picked up so much bleeping flack for Ranting, I swallow my speak whole and indigestible, like an old cow that’s lost its teeth, and I ache and I fall and I fall and I fall, lower in my opinion of me and my output, to where I’m in the destiny of becoming a totally dysfunctional freak – by some other ‘correct’ person’s classification. The GENRE of R A N T keeps me breathing, the GENRE of R A N T keeps me feeling, it bloody well makes me laugh, really laugh, down through my belly into my toes, when nothing else can make me laugh and everything else has the power to turn me into a martyred, snivelling, little soul. Rant makes my day brighter, it helps me be lighter, it gives meaning to me in my life. Please, please, please, PLEASE do NOT stop Ranting. If you do, I don’t know what I’ll do – my little flicker of a flame might just snuff out, poof – – - – -
Dear Ed.,
The section of your blog: “I don’t have the tools to talk about the large political, philosophical, sociological issues of our times. I don’t have the language, the information, the exactness to express that need I have, that desire to explain my frustration with the system in which I live. The control it has over me, the all pervasiveness of it. I am frustrated in my attempts to try and articulate the situation I find myself in” ironically hit the nail on the head. I admire your optimism in thinking that you’ll find a more precision instrument in the academic mind. I find that academia only manages to say far less in far more words than your average uneducated rant. The academic response may well be as enlightening as a copy of the Lisbon treaty. I think that there is an even more effective and precise tool at your disposal, the unadorned truth. What you expressed by claiming your inability to clearly articulate your frustrations was as articulate as anything that you could have said with a doctorate in applied rhetoric. We live in a brave new world. Individual voices are incapable of competing with the stereophonic and dolby-enhanced megaphonic tirade of power. Our goal is not to outshout the propoganda, but to find enough quietness to hear that still-small voice that holds our truth safe from the brainwashing operation to which which we are daily submitted. Once this voice has been heard, an articulacy will emerge that can command attention without razzamatazz or gimmick.
Please continue in this new-found vein of humility and frankness. Leave the academics in their towers and keep Beckett close in your thoughts as you sally Worstward Ho.
Ever tried? Ever Failed?
Try again. Fail again.
Fail Better.
Yours,
Bosco P Degeneratum B.A., M.A., T.B., ADHD, Fudd.
my. Yes – it seems the rant has a place but yet I feel dissatisfied with the lack of process that seems to accompany my rants at least – its just too easy, a deluge, a spitting contest .
Yes, I think thats it. Its the lack of process. Perhaps as you rightly say – we must find enough quietness to hear our own voice and reflect and out of that reflection an articulacy will come forth. So its not so much the lack of tools as the lack of quietness and reflection. Good point.
So maybe its the heavy handedness that is the key here and not the act of ranting. Either way I think its a good exercise for me to read more thinkers, more academic literature – it takes time, concentrates the mind, provokes questions into being …much of it is difficult – it is its own language . howeever reading an argument borne out of much time and thought is worthwhile whether I reject it or not. Besides which the least that can happen is that I’ll learn something…at the moment i find myself going round in circles – I think many of us do, we spend our time riffing off the same argument, going round in circles.
Let us see how this experiment works next month – see what it provokes…and yes absolutely, try again. Fail again. Fail better. Always
thanks for the comment…